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The COVID-19 pandemic caused international and domestic interruptions of everything. And, I mean EVERYTHING. Nearly every place of business in Massachusetts closed down about February 15, 2020, except places that provided daily essentials, such as gas stations and grocery stores. Restaurants were closed, shopping malls were closed, movie theaters were closed, and so on. Two things that hurt me the most were that concert venues had to close and we could not fly anywhere. That meant no live music for who knows how long! I am someone who averaged about 30 to 35 concerts a year while living in Massachusetts. I also could not fly anywhere! What on earth would I do to occupy my time now? Things started to open again after some months, but only in limited capacities (still no live concerts for quite some time, though). Each state in the US had their own rulebook on when and how to close and open. For the most part, Massachusetts did a good job trying to keep people healthy.
When the travel restrictions started to cool down in the US and Europe, I was able to book a flight to go back to Germany. But, this time, it was not just for sight-seeing, it was also to meet my girlfriend in person for the first time. This is her with me in the picture to the left...Andrea. We met each other through the music circuit. Specifically, we are both huge fans of Steel Panther, the greatest heavy metal band in the world. Andrea randomly reached out to me to see if I would be nice enough to buy her a shirt from a concert that she could not get in Germany. I agreed to do so, because I was fascinated that someone would reach out to me half way around the world just to get a shirt. I did buy the shirt and sent it to her in the mail. Of course, she did pay me back. But, we kept talking after this and one thing led to another and here we are, having a drink together in her small town of Weissenthurm, Germany. Incidentally, I should mention that two days before this flight was my last day on the job that I had for just a hair over 23 years. But, that is part of a longer story you will find in the different part of this webpage.
My original plan for this trip was to spend eight days in Germany and five days in Iceland as a stopover on the way back home to Boston. However, I decided to extend my stay in Germany and spent the entire two weeks there, skipping over the stopover in Iceland. Since the trip was only two weeks long, we had to make the most of our time together. We visited numerous castles and towns and ate at lots of fantastic restaurants.
On my first full day there, we drove for about 20 minutes from her town to Koblenz. There, at the Deutsches Eck (German Corner) I saw sections of the Berlin Wall, which memorialized the victims of Germany's division. The three sections were placed there in 1989 after the wall came down.
Continuing the day walking in Koblenz, and around the German Corner, we saw the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers. Across the Rhine River along the east bank is the Festung Ehrenbreitstein (Ehrenbreitstein Fortress). Once can take the cable car from the western bank of the river up to the top of the hill to enter the fortress. Continuing on the journey, there were several monuments and wonderful architecture to admire.
After viewing the carousel of pictures of the day, continue scrolling for more pictures and commentary about my holiday.
The next day, we drove to Dusseldorf to spend the day walking around Little Tokyo visiting neat shops, Japanese markets, eateries, and the Japanese Garden. While, I failed to take pictures most of the day, I did manage to take two from the Japanese Garden.
Andrea thought it would be fun to visit Movie Park in Bottrop, Germany, so we did that the following day. She was right, it was fun. Again, no pictures other than one at the entrance. The park was great with lots of cool attractions.
The following day, we went to visit Burg Lahneck (Lahneck Castle) in Lahnstein. The architecture and exhibits were absolutely fabulous. The carousel on the left has a few pictures.
After leaving there, Andrea's parents took us to lunch at a place called Maximilians Brauwiesen. It is here that I saw a vomit station just steps away from the baby changing station in the restroom. I was impressed. The US should consider similar installations!
The puke station aside, I must say the food was phenomenal. I had the schweinshaxe (slow-roasted crispy and juicy pork knuckle) with sauerkraut and kartoffelknodel (potato dumplings), accompanied by the house beer. In each time since that I have returned to Germany, I always made it a plan to have this dish at least once. I have experience from multiple locations in Germany now and it never disappoints.
After that delectable lunch, we drove to another spot and walked around some backstreets of Lahnstein go to a medieval festival that was happening that day! There, you could see the Burg Lahneck in the background. The festival had fun activities, crafts, cool things to buy, and of course what looked like great food. But, since we had just eaten, we were not hungry. I was so intrigued by the buildings and streets that I neglected to take many pictures of the festival itself! Maybe some day I will get it right.
Later that same evening, Andrea and I went back to Koblenz to take the cable car up to Festung Ehrenbreitstein for their annual festival of lights. Several towns do this and they can be quite spectacular. For this particular festival of lights, we spent a few hours there walking around the fortress in amazement at all the work that went into putting this together. And, at the same time, enjoying the moment not even thinking about the pandemic. Everyone around us acted normally as if that long nightmare was over. Enjoy some of these pictures I took.
A couple of days later, we ventured up to Drachenfels (Dragon's Rock) in the Siebengebirge (Seven Mountains) uplands between Konigswinter and Bad Honnef. There, we hopped on the Drachenfelsbahn and rode to the top of the peak where we could walk around and take in the scenery, as well as poke around the remains of Burg Drachensfel. This castle was about 500 years old at the time it was destroyed in 1634 during the 'Thirty Years' War' and was never rebuilt. While we were there at the summit, we had a cup of hot cocoa in the little diner at the museum. At this point, the holiday is quickly coming to a close.
As amazing as this trip has been so far, nothing could prepare me for the next town to visit. It seemed like every day was even more amazing than the day prior, and this was no exception. Talk about falling in love!
TO BE CONTINUED...
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